1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A flexible flat cable (hereinafter noted as an “FFC” in some cases) is known in the related art as a member connecting a circuit board to another circuit board that are provided inside an electronic device. The thinness and flexibility of the FFC contribute greatly in downsizing current electronic devices that are made smaller. The FFC is thus often used in an image forming apparatus employing an electrophotographic method as well. It is known that the FFC is used to connect a control board and an LEDA especially when the LEDA is used as a light source for the electrophotography.
When the image forming apparatus has a plurality of LEDAs, it is convenient to arrange the LEDAs in parallel with one another and in the same direction for the reason of allowing wiring paths of the FFC to be shared, for example. The FFC folded a fewer number of times is less expensive since it costs more, as a processing cost, to increase the number of folds of the FFC. As a result, a reduced cost is achieved by wiring (arranging) the FFCs on top of one another within a device. That is, it is unique to the image forming apparatus that the FFCs are wired on top of one another within the device.
However, a problem called crosstalk occurs when a signal is transferred through the FFCs wired on top of one another. The crosstalk refers to an existing state where a magnetic field is generated around a wire every time a signal is driven along the wire so that, when two wires are disposed adjacently to each other, two magnetic fields act on each other to generate cross coupling of energy between signals. Data is not transferred accurately when the crosstalk occurs. Accordingly, there is known a technology to avoid the effect of crosstalk by providing a contact inhibition mechanism which inhibits the FFCs from contacting one another. Moreover, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-109295 for example discloses a configuration where a light emission timing is changed by controlling a data transfer timing to the LEDA for the purpose of preventing current consumption from being increased when each LEDA is turned on at the same time in eliminating static from a photoconductor.
However, the technology in the conventional art has problems that the cost is increased by the addition of a new component and that the effect caused by the crosstalk cannot be avoided at the time of performing normal print data transfer.
In view of the aforementioned problems, there is a need to provide an image forming apparatus which can avoid the effect caused by the crosstalk with a simple configuration.